What Coase Actually Believed

It’s remarkable how often people are remembered for believing or doing things that they in fact opposed. Professor David Ball recently passed along this gem from the famous economist Ronald Coase.

The world of zero transaction costs has often been described as a Coasian world. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the world of modern economic theory, one which I was hoping to persuade economists to leave.

Source: The Firm, the Market and the Law, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1988. p.174.